Make sure you have a pet maxxed that can do group heals, an ability that heals all the team members.

Reason Celestial Tournament can be so annoying is not being able to do a mass heal and revive on your pets after each battle. There is a way around this for healing up wounded pets, just can't bring any back from the dead. Make a team with your group heals pet as starter and your poor wounded guys as secondaries and take on one of the opponent teams or individuals that always start with a move that does no damage to you (the guides tell you who these are). Heal, forfeit, retry, heal, forfeit, retry, etc. ... until everyone back in peak health. Means a badly damaged pet isn't out of action and unusable for later battles.

Stinker is most commonly used for this as any serious pet collector will have him, you get him for the 50 Unique Pet achievement. Other group heal pets like Alterac-brew Pup or Frostwolf Ghostpup have slightly stronger heals if you happen to have them but really not necessary.

Ranok wrote:Make sure you have a pet maxxed that can do group heals, an ability that heals all the team members.

Reason Celestial Tournament can be so annoying is not being able to do a mass heal and revive on your pets after each battle. There is a way around this for healing up wounded pets, just can't bring any back from the dead. Make a team with your group heals pet as starter and your poor wounded guys as secondaries and take on one of the opponent teams or individuals that always start with a move that does no damage to you (the guides tell you who these are). Heal, forfeit, retry, heal, forfeit, retry, etc. ... until everyone back in peak health. Means a badly damaged pet isn't out of action and unusable for later battles.

Stinker is most commonly used for this as any serious pet collector will have him, you get him for the 50 Unique Pet achievement. Other group heal pets like Alterac-brew Pup or Frostwolf Ghostpup have slightly stronger heals if you happen to have them but really not necessary.

In my eyes, this counts as exploiting..

If it was intended to heal pets like that, there would be no need to make tournament instanced (to prevent heals)...

If it was intended to heal pets like that, there would be no need to make tournament instanced (to prevent heals)...

Big thumbs up.

Admittedly I've used the healing trick to defeat the Celestial Tournament. Certainly early on. I don't anymore (I have no need to) but I agree that it does feel a bit exploitative. Props to those of you completing the tournament without doing this!

If it was intended to heal pets like that, there would be no need to make tournament instanced (to prevent heals)...

By this standard, pretty much all the battles with the heavy-duty pet trainers would be exploits. They involve using the various pet talents that Blizz has supplied in such a way that we can win a battle against a tough opposing team. Abilities like Stinker's Bleat are part of our arsenal of abilities, it doesn't seem any more unfair to use it than the popular Howl Bomb.

For the newer pet collectors without a big collection of maxxed out pets, being able to reuse a key pet in more than one battle might be what keeps Tournament from being impossible. So kind of like the Menagerie nerf, group heals has opened it up to more players.

I find it hard to believe that the developers weren't fully aware of the group heal strategy when they implemented Celestial Tournament. And it's been public knowledge for years now, seems if it were considered an exploit that they would have found some way to disable it.

If it was intended to heal pets like that, there would be no need to make tournament instanced (to prevent heals)...

By this standard, pretty much all the battles with the heavy-duty pet trainers would be exploits. They involve using the various pet talents that Blizz has supplied in such a way that we can win a battle against a tough opposing team. Abilities like Stinker's Bleat are part of our arsenal of abilities, it doesn't seem any more unfair to use it than the popular Howl Bomb.

For the newer pet collectors without a big collection of maxxed out pets, being able to reuse a key pet in more than one battle might be what keeps Tournament from being impossible. So kind of like the Menagerie nerf, group heals has opened it up to more players.

I find it hard to believe that the developers weren't fully aware of the group heal strategy when they implemented Celestial Tournament. And it's been public knowledge for years now, seems if it were considered an exploit that they would have found some way to disable it.

Just name ONE other strategy, that even borders exploitation..I have never seen them..

Also, Celest is not for beginners.. It requires 15 (nerfed from 30) level 25 pets, just to queue for it.
And since all of the fights can be duo'ed and you only do 7 battles, that's perfect match..

Blizzard could, however, solve this particular exploit with ease; Disable the Forfeit-button during Celest, just like heal/bandage is disabled..

If it was intended to heal pets like that, there would be no need to make tournament instanced (to prevent heals)...

Big thumbs up.

Admittedly I've used the healing trick to defeat the Celestial Tournament. Certainly early on. I don't anymore (I have no need to) but I agree that it does feel a bit exploitative. Props to those of you completing the tournament without doing this!

Well, I "had to" do it, the proper way, as I never heard about this exploit until now..

I did, however, shamelessly use Wowhead's guide and alter it for my own pet collection..

Ranok wrote:Make sure you have a pet maxxed that can do group heals, an ability that heals all the team members.

Reason Celestial Tournament can be so annoying is not being able to do a mass heal and revive on your pets after each battle. There is a way around this for healing up wounded pets, just can't bring any back from the dead. Make a team with your group heals pet as starter and your poor wounded guys as secondaries and take on one of the opponent teams or individuals that always start with a move that does no damage to you (the guides tell you who these are). Heal, forfeit, retry, heal, forfeit, retry, etc. ... until everyone back in peak health. Means a badly damaged pet isn't out of action and unusable for later battles.

Stinker is most commonly used for this as any serious pet collector will have him, you get him for the 50 Unique Pet achievement. Other group heal pets like Alterac-brew Pup or Frostwolf Ghostpup have slightly stronger heals if you happen to have them but really not necessary.

In my eyes, this counts as exploiting..

If it was intended to heal pets like that, there would be no need to make tournament instanced (to prevent heals)...

How is this exploiting?

Celestials has now been around for a year. Not only are the folks at WoW aware of this it seems that no matter what there is always one Tamer in Celestials setup that you can do the DoT Healing trick. If WoW really this was a problem they would have corrected ages ago - either but making all Celestial Tamers attack on first hit or disable DoT Heals.

WoW has been pretty quick to fix exploitative pet battle bugs. They got rid of the power-leveling at Garrisons with 6.1. They even got rid of a bug with the Traveling Pet tamers. But like another poster stated - you go in there with a well developed battle pet inventory there isn't much need to heal pets between rounds.

Ranok wrote:Make sure you have a pet maxxed that can do group heals, an ability that heals all the team members.

Reason Celestial Tournament can be so annoying is not being able to do a mass heal and revive on your pets after each battle. There is a way around this for healing up wounded pets, just can't bring any back from the dead. Make a team with your group heals pet as starter and your poor wounded guys as secondaries and take on one of the opponent teams or individuals that always start with a move that does no damage to you (the guides tell you who these are). Heal, forfeit, retry, heal, forfeit, retry, etc. ... until everyone back in peak health. Means a badly damaged pet isn't out of action and unusable for later battles.

Stinker is most commonly used for this as any serious pet collector will have him, you get him for the 50 Unique Pet achievement. Other group heal pets like Alterac-brew Pup or Frostwolf Ghostpup have slightly stronger heals if you happen to have them but really not necessary.

In my eyes, this counts as exploiting..

If it was intended to heal pets like that, there would be no need to make tournament instanced (to prevent heals)...

How is this exploiting?

Celestials has now been around for a year. Not only are the folks at WoW aware of this it seems that no matter what there is always one Tamer in Celestials setup that you can do the DoT Healing trick. If WoW really this was a problem they would have corrected ages ago - either but making all Celestial Tamers attack on first hit or disable DoT Heals.

WoW has been pretty quick to fix exploitative pet battle bugs. They got rid of the power-leveling at Garrisons with 6.1. They even got rid of a bug with the Traveling Pet tamers. But like another poster stated - you go in there with a well developed battle pet inventory there isn't much need to heal pets between rounds.

You really can't see how it is exploiting?

You heal between fights, when Blizzard have made it instanced precisely to prevent heal between fights..

Or they made it instanced to prevent revival between fights and since it was on the same command as the revival, healing from the button was collateral damage. If they wanted to prevent healing they could have made it more punishing, but they didn't.

I doubt it is an exploit, but the reality is unless we ask (And they answer), no one will know for sure. Considering how many people do it in the pet battle world and how much LeCraft was paying attention to pet battle mechanics, my gut is on "not an exploit".

Personally, I think it's rather cheesy and would be rather annoying to use but I have to believe

1) Blizzard is aware of it
2) Hasn't spoken out against it
3) Hasn't fixed it

so based on those three things I think it is safe to use. I don't ever recall using it but then again I had 200+ lvl 25 pets when it came out so I had no shortage of options for different teams. I'm not going to condemn people for using the tactic, especially when they have a lower number of pets available, but I'm also not going to use it or recommend it as my first option for beating the tournament. That is exactly what I did in my tournament guide. I mentioned it as an option but didn't plan on using it for any of the teams.

1: Why do you think Blizzard knows about it? Have you PERSONALLY told them
2: They can't speak for/against something they don't know exist. And they won't talk about it, until they fix it (like Kura/Erris xp nerf)
3: See 2..

It haven't even been mentioned (prior to this thread) in the forum, which is the biggest in regards to pet battles. It's not mentioned on Wowhead. It's not mentioned on Blizzard's own forum..
I think it's safe to say, it's a select few, who have ever thought of this way of cheesing the tournament and Blizzard is most likely NOT in that closed circle..

FuxieDK wrote:1: Why do you think Blizzard knows about it? Have you PERSONALLY told them
2: They can't speak for/against something they don't know exist. And they won't talk about it, until they fix it (like Kura/Erris xp nerf)
3: See 2..

It haven't even been mentioned (prior to this thread) in the forum, which is the biggest in regards to pet battles. It's not mentioned on Wowhead. It's not mentioned on Blizzard's own forum..
I think it's safe to say, it's a select few, who have ever thought of this way of cheesing the tournament and Blizzard is most likely NOT in that closed circle..

I wouldn't call it a closed circle. The guide that is commonly linked in reference to the Celestial Tournament, with almost 400,000 views and nearly a year old, is hosted on Wowhead and details quite clearly how the healing within the Tournament scenario works. The other popular Tourney guides hosted on Wowhead also reference the same healing procedures.

I have to agree with Jerebear, the goal was to prohibit revival of dead pets, not healing. And the likelihood of someone at Blizzard, whether LeCraft or anyone else that partakes in pet battling, not being aware seems pretty slim.

The guide that Aurae refers to, http://www.wowhead.com/guide=2212/celes ... th-18-pets, not only describes the pet healing technique, it's an essential part of its strategy. And having been published on Wowhead since July of last year it's ridiculous to think that Blizzard developers aren't fully aware of its existence.

Part of the reason it's the most popular guide is that it makes the Celestial Tournament accessible to lots more players, folks who haven't had the time or resources to assemble a large collection of pets with all the necessary abilities for the various battles. The second most popular guide assumes more pets available and doesn't totally depend on healing but has a tab that explains in detail how to do it.

I'd agree that finding a trick to revive pets would be exploiting. But Blizz has never, to my knowledge, decreed "thou shalt not heal". In fact, in addition to all the trainers that don't attack on the first round, they deliberately disabled the 10% HP hit on a forfeit. Makes a person wonder if the healing technique wasn't on their minds when they built the Tournament.

Whether you use or don't use the healing technique is pretty much a personal decision. I don't, but I have the advantage of a big pet collection that includes extras of some of the key battlers. This took time, gold, and some real money too. I like the idea that somewhat more casual pet collectors have a chance with the Celestial Tournament too.

I have found this guide to be mostly reliable: http://www.wowpetbattle.com/celestialtournament.html. Some of the strategies under An Awfully Big Adventure Guide on that site are helpful, too.
There are a couple of fights which make use of a somewhat "exotic" pet, and you might need/want to look up an alternate strategy for those.
I've used a couple of strategies here, too. http://murlocharbor.com/category/celestial-tournament/

I am also late to the party and have just recently gotten started on the CT. Two celestials collected now My advice is have extra foxes, spiders, and bunnies. You can get surprisingly good mileage out of those guys, and you have backups in case a fight RNGs not in your favor. I haven't seen any need to use a healing technique, though admittedly I have a very large pet collection and I made a deliberate choice not to try the CT until I had a deep bench of 25s. Good luck!

Healing inside the Celestial Tournament has been posted MANY times in the Battlenet forums. If it was an exploit, the posts would be deleted and the poster would be punished for posting exploits. The posts are still there going as far back as 2013. It could have been curbed by simply turning on the forfeit damage you normally see in wild battles.